


Little Secrets

by ncfan



Series: Legendarium Ladies April [30]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Arthedain, Fem!Celepharn, Gen, POV Female Character, Third Age, Tumblr: legendariumladiesapril, legendarium ladies april
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-11 05:08:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18423498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: Celepharn had learned much during her fosterage in Imladris, and yet, somehow, she had learned absolutely nothing of Hobbits.





	Little Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Legendarium Ladies April 3rd [general prompt](http://legendariumladiesapril.tumblr.com/post/183912085402/legendarium-ladies-april-prompts-for-april-03), ‘Secrets.’ Continuing my yearly tradition of doing a fic for one of the royal line of Arnor that I head canon (based on the gender-neutral names) as a woman. This time it’s Celepharn, one of the rulers of Arthedain.

Celepharn had learned much during her fosterage in Imladris. That was hardly unusual; Master Elrond was a diligent teacher, and he and his family strove to ensure that their royal wards left their care more enlightened than they had entered it. What would have been very strange would be if Celepharn had _not_ left Imladris more learned than she had entered it. It would have signaled a highly uncharacteristic laxity on the part of the teacher—or, more likely, signaled serious inattention on the part of the student.

Celepharn had learned much during her time in Imladris, and yet, somehow, she had never heard even the softest whisper regarding the Periannath.

“Ah, Mistress Gildis,” called the woman so small that if Celepharn hadn’t known her to have a good forty years to her name, she would have thought her a young child. “Good. I was hoping you’d be back soon. Did you find what I asked for?”

Right to the point, was Rosemary. Ah, well. So was Celepharn. Neither of them had much, if any, use for small talk that didn’t achieve some end greater than itself. Celepharn hopped down from the wagon she had been driving and walked round to the back. “I did indeed. She patted one of the sacks piled in the back of the wagon. “Seeds for planting. Wheat, turnip, carrot, tomato, pumpkin, potato. I also—“ Celepharn took a sturdy woolen pouch from her belt, wherein there were several, smaller pouches “—have seeds for fruit trees and bushes. Apple and blackberry, mostly, but I was able to get some mulberry and chestnut as well.”

Rosemary’s brown eyes lit up. “Fantastic! Thank you, Mistress Gildis.” She laughed ruefully, wringing her apron with her reddened, slightly sweaty hands. “We had seeds of our own, but I’m afraid the animals got into them, and we would’ve been in a tight spot without something to replace it all with.”

“I can imagine.”

She had never heard of the Periannath, not so much as a whisper, before they had come to the attention of Arthedain’s border guards. None of her people knew just where they had come from, and the Periannath themselves had been decidedly vague on that point. They had scattered upon reaching Arthedain and being accepted there by Celepharn’s father, most of them integrating into Dúnedain communities. But there were some communities, such as the one Rosemary here had established near Amon Sûl, that was entirely Periannath in makeup, no Men to be seen anywhere within the confines of the new, slowly growing village.

Next was to get the sacks to what served as the village’s storehouse. For this, Celepharn’s help was needed, for though the Periannath were a hardy people, they were a little people, and the sacks were rather too large for them to maneuver over long distances. Someone came running up with a wheelbarrow, and that expedited the process considerably.

Once the storehouse was reached, Celepharn was obliged to wait outside, watching as the Periannath either wheeled the sacks inside, or struggled to carry them in themselves. For one thing, the buildings had been built to accommodate people of the Periannath’s size; Celepharn would have had to crawl on her hands and her knees to get through the door. What was more, the Periannath had excavated their homes and shops and official buildings directly into the heather-carpeted hillsides, and Celepharn would have been obliged also to remain on her hands and knees once within. _And_ there was the matter of keeping from breaking any of the belongings found therein; that would not be conducive to building or maintaining friendly relations.

So Celepharn took a seat with her back pressed to the side of the hill, the soft heather tickling the back of her neck. After a few minutes, Rosemary came and joined her, sighing gustily and clicking her feet, bare of shoes and covered on the top by an odd carpeting of thick, curly brown hair, together, over and over again.

“You know, Mistress Gildis,” Rosemary said, very casually, “I do wonder about you, sometimes.”

“Oh?” The sky was very blue this day, though there was a tint of gray towards the south.

“Yes. You always seem to have what I ask you to bring me, no matter what it is.”

“You haven’t asked me for anything that would be prohibitive,” Celepharn pointed out easily.

“You have a funny definition of ‘prohibitive’; I don’t know anyone who could have brought us as many seeds as you have, so quickly.” Rosemary raised an eyebrow, looked Celepharn up and down. Almost teasingly, “You’re not some kind of robber queen, are you?”

A spate of startled laughter escaped Celepharn’s mouth, high-pitched and bubbling in her throat. “No, Rosemary, no robber queen am I.” She tried to imagine what her parents would have thought of her being a robber queen, or what Master Elrond and Lady Celebrían would have thought about it, and she laughed again. “I am simply a Dúnadan who knows how to get ahold of needed supplies.”

Being a princess whose father approved of her efforts to care for the vulnerable in their kingdom certainly helped. Rosemary didn’t need to know that. It would make things rather awkward if the Periannath of this village knew just who their benefactor was; Celepharn didn’t want that.

She could imagine, though, coming here again when she was queen. Rosemary, by then old and gray, would come out of her home in the side of the hill and exclaim, _“Aha! I knew you for a robber queen the moment I saw you! Where else could you have gotten that finery from?_ ”

Or gray, maybe, but not old. Not old the way the Men of Rhovanion grew old. Not even old the way the Dúnedain grew old. The Periannath were intriguing, in this. Celepharn saw many in this village alone with gray hair and faces carved deep with wrinkles. Their eyes were still bright, though. Not the starry brightness of the Dúnedain, but the energetic brightness of a child who had yet to grow weary of the world. No matter how old the Perian, they did not, to Celepharn’s eyes, ever appear weary. Tired after a long day’s work, but never weary.

“If you have questions,” Celepharn remarked, “I have questions, too.”

“Oh? And what are they?”

“Where did you all come from?” That seemed, to Celepharn, a perfectly innocent question. “I’ve never heard a satisfactory answer to the question, and no one in Arthedain had ever heard of the Periannath before you came over the Hithaeglir.”

Rosemary’s face froze, but only for a moment, before she was back to her genial self. “We don’t really come from much of anywhere.” She waved her hand lazily. “We’re wanderers.” Never mind how quickly this village’s people had taken to sedentary life. “Wanderers who decided at last to settle down. And you may find yourself dealing with more of us before long.”

“Will we?” Her father would want to know about that.

“Oh, yes.” Rosemary’s eyes lit up as they did whenever she had a tale to tell. “My people are the Harfoots—“ she grimaced suddenly “—or Harfeet; Viola keeps harping on about it’s really ‘Har _feet_.’ But there are two other kinds of Hobbits out there, and I think they meant to follow us.

“The Fallohides are taller than us, and rather more adventurous, to boot. You’ll know them when you see them, for they’ve all got golden hair. The Stoors…” Rosemary tapped her chin with her forefinger “…now, the Stoors are a little odd. They like water much more than a Hobbit should, and they wear _boots_ when the ground’s all down with mud, if you can believe it.” Rosemary wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I certainly can’t. The men even grow beards sometimes.”

“Dúnedain men don’t grow beards until they’re very old,” Celepharn offered.

“Well, that makes them a little like us, though the similarities die off pretty quick. Anyways—“ Rosemary clapped Celepharn’s knee “—you can expect a lot more Hobbits showing up and requesting your, ahem, ‘expertise.’”

Celepharn smiled. “I look forward to it.”

The Bëorians had come over the Ered Luin first. Then, the Hadorians, tall and golden-haired. Then, the Haladin, who had always been rather different from the other two. A well-trodden story was primed to play out again, and as far as Celepharn was concerned, the least the Dúnedain could do was endeavor to be as good a steward to the Periannath as the Elves had been to the Edain.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Edain** —Men of the three houses (the Houses of Bëor, Hador and Haleth) who were faithful to the Elves throughout the First Age; after the War of Wrath they were gifted with the land of Númenor and became known as the Dúnedain; after the Akallabêth they established Arnor and Gondor (singular: Adan) (Sindarin)  
>  **Ered Luin** —“The Blue Mountains” (Sindarin); the mountain range at the far western border of Eriador, that in the Years of the Trees and the First Age served as the border between Eriador and Beleriand. It was also known as the Ered Lindon, the Mountains of the Land of the Singers, Lindon being a name given to the region of the Ossiriand by the Ñoldor, derived from the Nandorin Lindānā.  
>  **Fallohide** —the least numerous of the three kindreds of the Hobbits. Fallohides tended to be taller and slimmer than other Hobbits; they tended (though weren’t always) to be fair-haired and fair-skinned. Fallohides were regarded as being bolder and more curious than Harfoots or Stoors, and tended to be better hunters than they were farmers. Of the three kindreds, they were the friendliest with the Elves.  
>  **Harfoot** —the most numerous of the three kindreds of the Hobbits. Harfoots were shorter than Fallohides or Stoors, and it was they who first instituted the custom of living in smials, specially fashioned Hobbit-holes tunneled into the earth. Of the three kindreds, they were the friendliest with the Dwarves.  
>  **Hithaeglir** —the Misty Mountains (Sindarin); the mountain range separating Eriador and Rhovanion, the largest mountain range in Middle-Earth; first raised by Morgoth to hinder Oromë in his hunting of Morgoth’s creatures  
>  **Periannath** —‘Halflings’; the class plural form of ‘Perian,’ the Sindarin name for the Hobbits (singular: Perian) (plural: Periain) (Sindarin)  
>  **Stoor** —one of the three kindreds of the Hobbits. The Stoors tended towards being heavier and broader than Harfoots or Fallohides, and were in possession of large hands and feet. Uniquely among Hobbits, Stoors normally grew facial hair. The Stoors traditionally lived in flatlands and near rivers, and were the only kindred of Hobbits who had much to do with the water. Of the three kindreds, they were the friendliest with Men.


End file.
